Posted by Theona on February 4, 2003, at 21:39:37
In reply to Re: Lexapro has been very good for me, posted by sussus on February 4, 2003, at 18:32:55
I have been on Lexapro about 5 days now, after being on Celexa for 4 months. It was very confusing. I was on Celexa for a year and a half about 3 years ago and it was wonderful, but when I returned to it, I was nauseated several hours a day and had jaw chatter. I don't understand why it worked well before, but not now. Prozac gives me whole body tremors in the a.m., as though I am about to have a sezure. And Zoloft gives me bad jaw chatter, like I'm freezing cold. The nausea to this severity only began with this year's round of medication, so I have been moved to Lexapro.
The first weekend, I was very nauseated, about 6 hours a day, and mild jaw chatter, but hopefully it may be the Celexa in my system and the transfer of meds. I am on 10mg of Lexapro. I was on 30mg of Celexa.
I went through a major depression last fall and tend to be chronically depressed. But more than that, over the last 4 years, I have slowly come to understand and accept that I experience OCD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. It is moderate, I believe, not severe, but enough to interfere with my progress in life. I am a horder. Everything I touch, I need to have a lot of it. But I have white-knuckled it through life, and managed it pretty well. The trouble is that managing it take a lot of my time. And I have high anxiety and intense thought patterns.
It took four years to move through denial systems - first only accepting that the anxiety was a big problem for me, and finally during the last quarter of 2002, realizing I collect too much of everything and have too much stuff. Over my lifetime, I narrowed the stuff down to sensible stuff instead of completely useless stuff (300 patterns and I never sew) and I am ready to move into getting all my stuff to managable levels.
So I went to my family doctor in October and have always been open with him about the OCD. He told me I would be on SSRIs for the rest of my life and he would make sure I had them, even if I didn't have insurance (which I do right now). I cried when I left. Finally I had someone on my side.
I found a therapist to work with me, a cognitive-behaviorist, and I have just begun with him.
It is as though at age 55, I have finally solved the problem of why my life has been so hard, so tiring, and I am beginning to have new hope.
Reading all the postings here has been very helpful. I dispared the first few days because I felt so sick and became morbidly depressed. But by day 4, when I was upset about something, I couldn't cry, and I knew the SSRI was beginning to "take." My thinking has been so intense, like constantly talking to myself. When I was on the Celexa, I was talking outloud when I was in the car. I never did that before, and didn't before I went on the Celexa. I didn't worry about it too much because when I was coming down off of the Prozac when I was taken off of it, I began to talk out loud, almost out of control. It was pretty strange, and didn't last, but sure did make me think about people with mental disorders who talk all of the time and the role of seritonin in their brains.
I hear so many of you say what I say - I just want to feel normal. Sometimes, in the past, the axiety level has been so high that getting anything done has been hard. One thing I noticed when on the Celexa was that there was some relief from a sense of "resistance" I always have about doing anything. I didn't realize it was from the seritonin imbalance. I blamed myself dreadfully for being lazy or lacking motivation. One day, I had complete relief from this and at work, I just worked along all day. It was wonderful. I hope that lies ahead and I will feel like that most of the time.
Other than the nausea and waiting for the Lexapro to go into full gear, I guess I've been pretty lucky. I sleep okay. I am not sleepy during the day. If I was depressed on the weekend, well there were other contributors - getting over a terrible cold that put me in bed 3 weekends in a row (I have an auto-immune condition where my antibodies attack my white cells and sometimes I am sick longer than usual) and slowed my life down when I am ready to get going, stuff like that, maybe it is because I am developing a psycosomatic reaction (nausea and exhaustion) to working on my house and fighting the OCD problem (which is why I am going to the CBT therapist), so who knows what the real cause is. It will take time to tease it all apart.
All I know is that like so many I've been reading about here, I was impatient in the first week. Because I was on Celexa for 4 months, I thought the trasition would be a snap, but for some reason, it wasn't. Maybe it will work better, sooner, because of being on the other SSRI, maybe not.
I would like to be a Lexapro success story to encourage others. If I only had the Celexa which made me sick 2 hours a day, I would take that, just to bring about recovery from the OCD. It has made life so hard. At the same time, I look back and now understand what I have been able to do inspite of it, and I feel better about myself. Now I am hoping that with some relief, I can do even more.
Theona
poster:Theona
thread:109458
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030204/msgs/139461.html